Five SFF Novels Set in the Much-Maligned City of Toronto

James Davis Nicoll

Fri Feb 28, 2020 12:00pm 21 comments 4 Favorites [+]

Photo by Flickr user pranav (CC BY 2.0)

Canada is a vast and diverse nation. Different regions have different customs and habits, not to mention differences of opinion (political and otherwise) with other regions. But they share one sentiment: Canadians generally hate Toronto. It may seem odd that a country would dislike its largest, most diverse city, a city in which one in twelve Canadians resides, a community that is responsible for one-fifth of the national economy and much of our cultural wealth, and even odder that Ontarians join in, given that the Ontario economy would collapse like a rotted fruit without Toronto, but there it is: Toronto-phobia.

Canadians are so notoriously Toronto-averse that Canadian cop show Flashpoint made a point of never explicitly stating that it was set in Toronto, leaving viewers outside Toronto free to imagine that the program was set in any large Canadian city that happened to possess the CN Tower that kept appearing in establishing shots.

[I would include a helpful picture of the CN Tower here, but I’d prefer not to be sued for doing so…]

Happily, not every Canadian SFF writer suffers from Toronto-phobia. Here are five examples of books set in the city from the fantasy side of the ledger.

Above by Leah Bobet

Far below Toronto’s streets, Safe provides a refuge to beings living with marvelous gifts and onerous curses—people who, if caught by the authorities, would be subjected to unpleasant experiments. Some of the refugees have been so subjected before they escaped to Safe.

Matthew is able to pass for a regular human. He can venture above to buy necessary supplies without letting any normal know that Safe exists.

Safe takes precautions against the mundane authorities. It never occurs to them that they are in any danger from supernatural entities—such as those who invade the refuge. Only Matthew and a handful of companions escape. If they are to save their community, they must discover who these invaders are, and how they can be fought.

The Night Girl by James Bo

Like so many before her, Perpetua Collins journeys to Toronto in search of a better life. Also like so many before her, she finds opportunity scarce and rent far too expensive. Welcome to the exciting world of homelessness in a town whose winter temps can hit -30o C… Fortune in the form of an enigmatic want ad smiles on Perpetua. Perpetua is just the human face needed to staff the front desk of T.P. Earthenhouse: Bouncers, Rare Coins, and Art Installations.

Toronto is even more diverse than it knows. Earthenhouse provides employment to one of Toronto’s more unusual demographics: supernatural beings like goblins and trolls. Earthenhouse himself is a goblin. But the fair folk have carefully hidden from humans for millennia and Earthenhouse’s plans endanger that masquerade. There will be consequences, and Perpetua will soon find herself threatened by them.

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Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed

Nick Prasad’s best friend Joanna “Johnny” Chambers is wealthy, white, and happens to be the world’s smartest teen. She’s this world’s answer to Reed Richards. The two teenagers have been friends since childhood. Nick is infatuated with Johnny and Johnny…values Nick as a chum.

Romantic frustration must be put to one side. Johnny’s latest invention is a miraculous power source, the key to solving climate change. All humanity will want it. So too will the unspeakable cosmic beings who covet our world. Turns out that the power source is also a dimensional gate.

Puny humans like Johnny and Nick can’t stand against such eldritch horrors. Nevertheless, they’re all that humanity has. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!

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The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

Mixed-race Sojourner “Scotch” Smith is too white to be black in the eyes of  her black schoolmates, too black to be white to her white schoolmates. Still, school is tolerable; school and the time Scotch spends with the Raw Gyals dance troupe both provide refuge from her parents’ draconian discipline.

There are a few other problems, such as the fact that her BFF Gloria seems to be eyeing Scotch’s ex-boyfriend. Oh, and the fact that Scotch has developed a weird skin condition and has been seeing floating heads…

All of these troubles pale in comparison to an unexpected volcanic eruption and an invasion by entities out of myth and legend, of course. Life just got all too interesting, and possibly quite short.

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Spells of Blood and Kin by Claire Humphrey

Lissa Nevsky’s grandmother left Lissa three legacies: haunting grief, a large, empty house, and a clientele that expects Lissa to step into her grandmother’s role as Toronto’s premier koldun’ia (Russian witch). The role is unwanted but necessary: Many of the old lady’s spells stopped working when she died and Lissa may be the only person who can restore them.

The spell Maksim Volkov purchased kept the supernaturally enhanced man’s violent urges under control. Without the magic, Maksim gives in to bloodlust and licks the open wound of mugging victim Nick. Maksim is cognizant enough to realise that he has probably passed his curse on to the young man. Maksim and Lissa will have to find Nick before he becomes a danger to Toronto. If only Maksim had any idea as to who Nick is or where he lives… If only the price that Lissa will pay was not so high…

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Doubtless I haven’t mentioned your favorite Toronto-based SFF book, so tell me about it in the comments.

In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He was a finalist for the 2019 Best Fan Writer Hugo Award, is one of four candidates for the 2020 Down Under Fan Fund, and is surprisingly flammable.

Footnotes

1: That’s a bit inaccurate. Only Canadians who live outside Toronto hate Toronto. Canadians within Toronto don’t hate non-Torontonians in return because they are unaware that there’s a world outside the city.

2: Or it could be more than one in twelve, depending on your definition of residing in Toronto.

• ANDRE NORTON REREAD

All Rebel, No Cause: Andre Norton’s Ride Proud, Rebel!

Judith Tarr

Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:30pm 25 comments 2 Favorites [+]

2020 is a difficult year for reading novels about the American Civil War. The old comfortable myths, the familiar interpretations of history, have developed serious fractures. The romance of the Confederacy has given way to the dismantling of Confederate war memorials. The election of an African-American President represented both the power of cultural change and the vehement, even violent opposition to it.

Andre Norton published Ride Proud, Rebel! in 1961, in the midst of the Civil Rights era. Her science fiction novels took care to depict a future that was not all or even mostly white, and she tried hard to write Black and Native American characters with respect and understanding. And yet she chose this material for a foray into historical fiction.

She imprinted in youth on Gone With the Wind, which is evident in her first novel (though published second), Ralestone Luck. But a generation had passed and her work had moved on to very different genres and philosophies. In fact, I wonder if this is another early trunk novel, written before she did serious thinking about race and culture in the United States.

Whatever motivated it, here it is. Fiery young Kentuckian Drew Rennie has defied his wealthy, Union-sympathizing family and joined the Army of the Confederacy. We meet him late in the war, still in his teens but already a hardened veteran. Despite the determined optimism of his fellow soldiers, the end is already in sight.

Drew’s rebellion is personal. His parents, he’s been raised to believe, are both dead. His father was a Texan, his mother a daughter of the house. When she became pregnant and her husband was apparently killed in war against Mexico, her father stormed down to Texas and hauled her back home. There she died after delivering her son.

Drew has a lifelong hate-hate relationship with his grandfather. He gets along, more or less, with the rest of the family, though all of them are on the other side and one is married to a Union officer. As the story progresses, he becomes the very unwilling protector of his young cousin Boyd, who wants to be a rebel just like Drew. Boyd runs away to join the Confederates; much of the action, in and around historical battles and skirmishes, consists of Drew trying to track down his wayward cousin and force him to go home.

That much of the plot is very 1961. Teen rebellion was a huge industry. The short life and tragic death of James Dean was its epitome, and his most famous film, Rebel Without a Cause, encapsulated the mood of the time.

Maybe that’s why she chose to write about the Civil War. It offers a dramatic backdrop for teen rebellion, with careful historical research and a battle-by-battle depiction of the final throes of the Confederacy in Kentucky and Tennessee. There’s a family secret and a mystery to solve, and there’s a direct lead-in to a sequel, in which Drew Goes West, Young Man to find out the truth about his father.

Drew is kind of a cipher, despite his personal conflicts, but some of the other characters are as lively as Norton characters get, including Boyd (though he’s also quite annoying) and the dialect-drawlin’ Texan, Anse Kirby. A Native American scout plays a strong role, and now and then a female character gets a decent number of lines.

Much of the action devolves into summary and synopsis of numbingly similar battle scenes. As often as characters get shot in the arm or shoulder, I feel as if I’m watching a Hollywood historical epic. Gallop gallop gallop pow! pow! off flies the soldier, winged in mid-flight. Drew gets knocked out and misses key battles, which have to be summarized after the fact. And in true series-regular fashion, he never suffers any serious damage, though the same can’t be said of the humans or equines around him.

The equines are amazingly well and accurately drawn. I wouldn’t have expected it of Norton, based on the way she generally portrays them, but this is a surprisingly horse-centric book. Drew’s family breeds horses, and he loves and understands them. He’s in the cavalry; when we meet him, he’s trying to round up horses for the army, and he’s riding a true horseman’s mount, a tough, not at all physically attractive, smart and savvy gelding named Shawnee. Shawnee, without a speaking part, still manages to be one of the novel’s more memorable characters, as, later on, does the mighty Spanish mule, Hannibal. Even the rank stud is well portrayed, and we get to see what Drew has to do in order to manage him on the trail and in camp.

Drew really is a convincing horse (and mule) man. He doesn’t fall for flash and pretty, he understands the true blessing of a smooth-gaited mount for spending long hours in the saddle, and we see exactly what those hours do to both the rider and the mount. When I was driven to skim the battle scenes—they are sincerely not my cuppa—I slowed down to enjoy the equine portions. She got them right.

And yet the novel, to me, felt hollow at the core. We are never told what the Cause is that Drew is fighting for. As far as anything in the story indicates, it’s a nebulous conflict, brother versus brother, fighting over land and resources. Drew is on the Confederate side because his grandfather is Union. What those two things really mean, we’re never actually told.

Drew’s world is overwhelmingly white, with a couple of token Native Americans (and some reflexive racism in that direction from the Texan, going on about the cruel, savage Comanche whose torture techniques come in handy for terrorizing bandits and Union soldiers). Once in a great while, we see a Black person. There’s a Mammy figure back home on the plantation, there’s a servant or two. Near the end we see an actual Black regiment fighting for the Union. We’re never told what that means. Or what the war is about. The words slave and slavery just… aren’t a factor.

It’s a massive erasure, and it’s compounded by the heroic portrayal of Nathan Bedford Forrest, under whom Drew eventually (and wholeheartedly) serves. Forrest here is heavily sanitized, turned into a hero-general. We hear nothing about his history, his slave trading and his atrocious treatment of his human merchandise. There’s no hint that his Cause might just happen to be unjust. Even while Drew tries to disabuse Boyd of the notion that war is all jingling spurs and flashing sabers, the war he fights is just as steeped in myth and denial, though it’s notably grittier.

I want to know how the story ends, despite the problems with the first half, so I’ll be reading Rebel Spurs next. As it happens, the first chapter takes place right down the road from where I sit, in a town I know quite well. That should be interesting.

Judith Tarr’s first novel, The Isle of Glass, appeared in 1985. Her most recent novel, Dragons in the Earth, a contemporary fantasy set in Arizona, was published by Book View Cafe. In between, she’s written historicals and historical fantasies and epic fantasies and space operas, some of which have been published as ebooks from Book View Café and Canelo Press. She has won the Crawford Award, and been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Locus Award. She lives in Arizona with an assortment of cats, a blue-eyed dog, and a herd of Lipizzan horses.

TOR.COM

SEE ANDRE NORTON

Huawei to open European 5G factory in France

AFP/File / DANIEL LEAL-OLIVASHuawei's planned 200-million-euro ($218-million) French facility will employ 500 people and produce equipment for the European market, according to chairman Liang Hua

Chinese telecom giant Huawei said Thursday that it would begin manufacturing radio equipment for next-generation 5G networks in France, its first such facility outside of China.

Huawei, which has become caught up in a bruising trade war between Beijing and Washington, has been attentively courting Europe as it tries to offset lost business in the US.

Its planned 200-million-euro ($218-million) French facility will employ 500 people and produce equipment for the European market, Huawei chairman Liang Hua told a press conference in Paris.

"The site will begin manufacturing radio equipment and then branch out to other products in future, depending on the needs of the European market," Liang said.

He did not say where the factory, which will produce around one billion euros worth of equipment a year, would be located nor when it would begin production.

Liang said the company was in discussions with the French government and local authorities about the project.

5G, or fifth generation, networks offer vastly higher cellular communication speeds compared with the 4G networks currently used widely, which could unlock a variety of new applications.

The US has been pressuring European allies to exclude Huawei from their 5G networks, but France and Britain have so far refused to be swayed.

French authorities said earlier this month they would not discriminate against the company but would nonetheless prioritise European operators, such as Nokia or Ericsson.

The US contends that Huawei is too close to the Chinese government and that its equipment could be used as a tool for spying -- a contention the company has denied.

A US court last week dismissed a challenge by Huawei to a ban on the purchase of its products by US federal agencies.

LE DIABLE IS FRENCH

THE GREAT SATAN IS AMERICA

 

Global economy wavers as world comes to standstillamid epidemic 

AFP/File / STRDeserted streets in Wuhan, China reflect an economy at a standstill

The world is coming to a standstill as the new coronavirus spreads: schools have closed in Japan, rallies are banned in Switzerland and flights are canceled worldwide.

That is putting the global economy at the greatest risk of recession since the 2008 financial crisis.

"With the partial exception of the Black Death in 14th century Europe, every major pandemic has been followed by an economic recession," said Professor Robert Dingwall, researcher at the University of Nottingham Trent in England.

"I don't think there is any good reason to think it would be different this time."

Long before the outbreak, the International Monetary Fund cautioned that the global economy was "fragile" and beset by risks, and even the expected slow growth could falter if one of the risks materialized.

Economists warn the coronavirus could provide just such a shock, especially since despite the emergency measures to try to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, it has been expanding daily, moving outwards from central China where it erupted in December.

As of January, production plants had been shut down in China and entire cities confined. Saudi Arabia has stopped pilgrims from traveling to Mecca, and on Friday, the iconic Baselworld watch fair was canceled, as was the Geneva auto show.

Football matches are played without spectators and behind closed doors in Italy, while uncertainty hangs over the Olympic Games set to open in Tokyo in July.

Over 84,000 people have been infected with the virus worldwide, and 2,800 have died, according to data from official sources compiled by AFP.

- Fatal blow -

All eyes are now on the United States. Though largely unscathed so far, health officials say an outbreak is inevitable.

AFP/File / Johannes EISELEGlobal stock markets have been in free fall amid hints of panic

If excess caution takes hold in the world's largest economy, especially among American consumers, it could be a fatal blow to growth.

As President Donald Trump blamed the media for exaggerating the danger, others worried about the real impacts.

If there is an outbreak, "the reaction is likely to be extreme," said Gregory Daco, chief economist of Oxford Economics.

"It would have a very, very negative impact. The economy would fall into recession immediately," he told AFP.

And in this crisis, the financial markets "accelerate the feeling of panic." Wall Street ended the week with losses not seen since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Beyond shuttering production, closings schools or forcing employees to telework, consumption, which accounts for two-thirds of the US economy, would come to a screeching halt.

While officials have confirmed only 15 cases in the United States -- just three of which are not related to travel -- anxiety about the illness is apparent: in Washington, people are reluctant to shake hands during conferences, subway users eye their coughing neighbors, and Americans are postponing their travel.

And if the US economy sneezes, the world will catch a cold.

The IMF already lowered its global growth forecast for 2020, taking into account the impact on China, the world's second-largest economy, but that was before the contagion spread to the rest of the world.

"There's a lot that we don't know," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters this week. "It's fast-moving. We are still learning."

The fund is still deciding what to do about the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, the semi-annual gathering of officials.

The meetings draw thousands of participants from all over the world, but it seems unlikely they will be held in their usual format in Washington.

- Fear and loathing -

Faced with "an obvious economic hit to both production and consumption... we need clear, confident and unified professional and political leadership," Dingwall said.

However, that is "always difficult to achieve in a country where responsibility for public health is as decentralized as it is in the US."

JIJI PRESS/AFP/File / STRSchools in Japan have been closed, but that could be counterproductive

And the British researcher cautions it is hard to manage public fear in the "raucous" US political atmosphere.

Barry Glassner, a retired American sociologist and author of a book The Culture of Fear, stressed that "nations and individuals need to take precautions, and among those should be counteracting fear."

Fears about the epidemic are "spreading at least as fast as is the virus itself and is potentially more dangerous," which could lead to less rational responses and behavior.

Rosemary Taylor, a professor at Tufts University who is an expert in epidemics, said minimizing the threat risks failing to prepare the public.

"I think the potential threat at the moment is not that the US is instituting draconian measures, but that is it is doing too little."

 

THE ECONOMIC GROWTH AROUND THE WORLD IS NOT DRIVEN BY MANUFACTURING, FINANCIAL SPECULATION, OR TECHNOLOGY IT IS CONSUMER SPENDING, YOU, ME AND OUR CREDIT CARDS, CAR PAYMENTS, MORTGAGES, ETC.

AND OUR WILLINGNESS TO BORROW AND GET INTO DEBT IN A LOW INTEREST RATE ECONOMY. AND IF SOMETHING STOPS OR RESTRICTS THAT THEN THE ECONOMY BOTTOMS. THAT IS WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK.


WE ARE THE PROFIT MAKERS NOT THE PROFIT TAKERS

WHETHER WE WORK OR CONSUME POST MODERN REIFICATION MEANS THE MEDIA AND STATE SEPARATE US INTO WORKERS/WORKING CLASS AND CONSUMERS, AS IF WE ARE DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS OCCUPYING THE SAME SOCIAL SPACE 

THIS IS A POST WWII SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED SCHIZOPHRENIA, NO WONDER WE GO MAD 

WHETHER WE WORK OR JUST CONSUME BOTH PRODUCE PROFIT FOR THE PROFIT TAKERS. THUS THERE IS NO REAL UNEMPLOYMENT UNDER CAPITALISM
BECAUSE WE ARE ALL WAGE SLAVES OF ONE KIND OR ANOTHER BEHOLDING TO THE MAN.

Syria's Kafranbel: from witty protests to recapture

AFP / Omar HAJ KADOURA Syrian man in military fatigues rides a motorbike by a mural-covered wall in the deserted city of Kafranbel, south of Idlib city amid an ongoing pro-regime offensive

The Syrian town of Kafranbel was long a symbol of humourous defiance to Damascus, famed for its witty posters, murals and cartoons, so its recapture by regime forces spells a heavy blow, activists say.

Kafranbel this week became the latest to be seized in a blistering government onslaught against the last rebel bastion in northwestern Syria.

The town in Idlib province bordering Turkey was one of the first to join the revolutionary fervour that swept Syria in 2011.

AFP / Omar HAJ KADOURA Turkey-backed Syrian fighter fires a truck-mounted gun in Idlib province in northwestern Syria

Ibrahim Sweid, 31, said he was at the first protest in Kafranbel in April 2011, just weeks after the uprising kicked off against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The town was once "the icon of the revolution, its resounding lute, the spark of the uprising in the Syrian north", he said.

"Our aim was first and foremost to bring down Assad's regime."

Sweid was among activists who set up the town's media office to document protests and then the bombardment as the country slid into civil war.

But today its members are long gone -- displaced, in exile, or killed.

AFP / Omar HAJ KADOURSyrian Bilal Bayush, 27, displays a picture of him during the 2011 uprising in the town of Kafranbel

Among those lost are Raed Fares, a charismatic cartoonist and radio host who was killed by unknown gunmen in 2018.

He and others had made the town famous for the witty slogans and giant political cartoons they held up in Arabic and English at the town's demonstrations.

- 'Fallen to the enemy' -

AFP / Omar HAJ KADOURA mural inspired by the 2011 Syrian uprising in the deserted city of Kafranbel

Sweid, his wife and three children fled 10 months ago after the Russia-backed regime increased its bombardment of the town.

But he returned from time to time, witnessing the town slowly sink into rubble, continuing to work as a journalist for a local television channel.

Only last Tuesday, he crouched on its outskirts, watching helplessly from afar as the missiles rained down.

"I left the area when I was sure it had fallen to the enemy. I looked at it one last time and left it at one o'clock in the morning," he said.

"After nine years of revolution, Kafranbel was occupied -- a town that had managed to give a voice to Syrians worldwide with its cartoons and signs."

In 2012, Kafranbel was rocked by fighting between regime fighters and defectors from Assad's army, before it slipped out of the government's control.

Sweid said he remembers filming the joy of residents -- including the late Raed Fares -- that summer.

"But now Raed's dead and so is Kafranbel," he said.

AFP / Omar HAJ KADOURAn aerial picture of the deserted Syrian city of Kafranbel

A town of some 20,000 people, Kafranbel stood out among its neighbours for its creative approach to activism.

"I have a dream. Let freedom ring from Kafranbel," read one sign in 2012 in English, playing on the town's name and echoing the words of Martin Luther King.

A poster the same year complained of congested skies, and demanded that policemen regulate the traffic of the warplanes overhead.

- 'All ended with Kafranbel' -

By 2015, Kafranbel was part of a large region under the control of opposition forces.

AFP / Omar HAJ KADOURA mural inspired by the 2011 Syrian uprising in the deserted city of Kafranbel

Two years later, it was overrun by the jihadists of Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate who still dominate the wider region today.

Fares said at the time he founded Fresh FM in 2013 to counter "fundamentalist narratives" in Idlib. After that, he was repeatedly targeted by armed groups.

When extremists tried to ban music, the activist responded by airing clucking chickens.

A first wave of residents fled the town last year, while others held out before joining the exodus over the past few months.

AFP / Omar HAJ KADOURA first wave of residents fled the town last year, while others held out before joining the exodus over the past few months

The onslaught on the wider region since December has displaced almost 950,000 people from their homes, more than half of them children, the United Nations says.

Bilal Bayush, 27, said Kafranbel over the past two months had become uninhabitable.

"If you were sick, there was nowhere to be treated or to buy medicine," said the father of two.

"Not a pillar has been left standing. My house is probably destroyed," said the activist, who was arrested as a student at Aleppo University before joining other citizen journalists in Kafranbel.

"For every event in Kafranbel, you'd see a cartoon on the walls of Kafranbel, a sign at its protests," he said.

Today nothing is left but memories.

"We use to sing and laugh for the revolution... It all ended with Kafranbel."

27FEB2020